I try not to ask for change back from a pizza guy, so it kind of depends. In fact, if I'm limited in the amount of change I have on me, I pay by credit card when I order it instead. But your $3 to $5 seems about right.

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10 years ago, when I was delivering pizza I was happy with two dollars and stoked with three dollars or higher. Add 10 years of inflation and you get...well I don't know the inflation rate and have never been that great at math.

Three dollars is my minimum for the standard delivery time of 55 minutes to 90 minutes (I usually order during the peak hours). If its going to be 30 minutes or less I tip higher. Why? Not because my hunger is satisfied but because if it takes an hour or more for delivery, the delivery person is super busy and generating many tips from the volume. Sometimes making three or four deliveries on one outing. They get the minimum of three dollars from me. If its 30 minutes or less that means they are slow, help the little guys out with a bigger tip, they aren't getting that many deliveries.

I feel like a cheap bastard now...but I basically just don't ask for the change back...usually my pizza's run in the 23.50 range, so I hand them 25 and send them on their way. I'm not much of a tipper in general though, unless it's a restaurant, knowing they only make 2-3 bucks an hour.

Here in NYC, the guys have got to walk (or ride a bike), so I usually go $5.00 on a $15.00 large pie. I'm in a third floor walk up too.

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If the place has a delivery charge, I normally don't tip as much as I would a place that has free delivery. However, I usually am very good with the tips; If my pie costs from $15 to $17, I'll give them the change from a $20.

A little tip about "delivery" charges: Very rarely do these extra charges actually go to the driver. Especially with the "mom and Pop" stores, it's just another way for the owners to cash in an extra buck or two.

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I delivered pizza from '96 to '99 (stories here) and generally, tips averaged out to $1.00 per house. I was usually cool with anything more than that. It was pretty rare that I got a tip of $5 or more, even on huge orders (20+ pizzas). We had a lot of people who didn't tip at all, or who would give $15 for a $14.93 (Tuesday special!) order. Most orders on expense accounts (most businesses, all churches) would never tip because it wouldn't show in the receipt.

Also, I don't know how it works everywhere, but we didn't get an hourly wage - you got paid per delivery (plus tips) and that was it. And you paid all your own car expenses. It was a great job on busy days and one of the shittiest jobs imaginable on slow days - you'd work Easter Sunday and get 6 deliveries in 8 hours, while the cooks got paid time-and-a-half for doing nothing.

To (finally) answer the question, I tip in the 15% range, both for pizza guys and waiters and whatnot. I'll tip extra for good service and I have no problem with not tipping for shitty service.

Originally posted by Karlos the JackalYeah, 4 or 5 bucks is about right, rounded to whatever means I don't get change back. I tend to tip pretty well, especially to anyone who might be handling my food again in the future.

What confuses me lately is how much to tip at restaurants where I pick up food to go. I usually go around 10% but I feel stingy somehow.

Originally posted by Karlos the JackalYeah, 4 or 5 bucks is about right, rounded to whatever means I don't get change back. I tend to tip pretty well, especially to anyone who might be handling my food again in the future.

What confuses me lately is how much to tip at restaurants where I pick up food to go. I usually go around 10% but I feel stingy somehow.

The only time I tip at all for "to-go" food is when they have the curbside/parking lot pickup service. If they have a runner to bring out the food, especially if it's a good-sized order, I'll generally give that person a dollar or two for saving me having to get my lazy ass out of the car.

Sorry, flat wrong. Period. You may not tip as much, but you still tip.

You may not think there's much service involved, but you'd be wrong. Speaking from horrid personal experience, working as the to-go server requires as much or more service as working out front because you have to deal with all of the last minute changes, brain farts, and general idiocy of the average customer condensed into one very short period. Then, you have the joy of making last second substitutions because they "forgot something" or, even better, trying to explain to the irate customer that they can't have "fill in the blank" without paying for it or, better yet, dealing with the customer who now has to wait for their order to be remade because they forgot to mention that they were violently allergic to mushrooms when they ordered the well done steak au poivre with mushroom peppercorn sauce.

At most of the stores I worked at in college and afterwards, to-go was the position given to the servers who weren't in favor with the management for one reason or another or to those they were trying to make quit because the server was, on a busy night, going to bust their ass and was going to get almost nothing out of it because "to go service is nil".

Here's what I do with to-go. I call in, place an order, then drive in and pay for it and take it home after waiting however long they tell me to wait.

That's pretty minimal. I don't tip the woman who makes my appointment at the Dentist's office, and she's doing roughly the same amount of work for me.

Maybe its because I don't expect more from a to-go pickup than I do from a McDonalds pickup. That seems pretty equivalent. I don't tip there, and its the same routine. I place an order - someone rings it up, then picks it up from the "kitchen", then I take it and leave. The same interactions happen there as in your restauarant scenario, but I don't tip at fast food and I would assume the majority of people don't. I do tip at 24 hour burrito places after 11pm at night, but that's a self defense mechanism.

I'm derailing this thread as it is, though. Just my opinion. Feel free to give your money to whoever you want to.